The Old House On the Prairie
by Ciya
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate an old house with a history of multiple murders. Whumpage ensues.


_Written for Supernatural . tv's 'Hellatus Fanfiction Picture Prompt #1' challenge._

**The Old House On the Prairie**

The world was burning up. Her mother's touch, which was normally soothing, hurt her parched skin. A cold, wet cloth was laid across her forehead causing her to shiver. Opening her eyes at the piteous wailing of her baby brother, she hears her parents speaking in hushed tones and can barely make out their forms in the dim lamp light. A drop of water slides down her cheek and along her neck, it feels refreshing since she'd stopped sweating hours ago. The fire went on as darkness settled into the room. Soon the heat went away, leaving behind bone chilling cold and darkness.

When she awoke she noticed her room had changed. Gone were the peeling, whitewash-covered newspapers her mother had plastered on the walls to help insulate the room from the relentless prairie winds. Now the walls were smooth and painted a deep rose with cream trim, the open windows were covered with lacey cream curtains that moved slowly in the warm breeze. "Mama? I'm feeling better; may I get up for awhile? Mama?" A red-haired woman opened the door and bustled into the room. The young girl's eyes opened wide at the shortness of the woman's dress. Her mama would have been mortified - why you could see her legs! "Who are you? What are you doing in my room? Where's my mother?" The woman ignored the child as she pulled several dresses from the closet. -_When did papa build a closet?-_When the woman started undressing the girl ran out of the room. "Mama!" she screamed. She ran into the main room of the house and stopped short, staring, her mouth dropping open at the strangeness of the furnishings. The awe she felt quickly turned to anger. How dare they steal her parent's house and throw their things away! Fury ran through her and soon the furnishings were being whipped around the room as if they were in a tornado. Hearing the noise the red-haired woman ran out of her room, that was a mistake she was destined to never repeat, as she was picked up and tossed about like a cork in a storm. Her screams of pain and terror turned into gurgles which soon quieted; her remains were deposited in the middle of the room as an unrecognizable heap of blood, meat and bones. Clumps of bloodied red hair slowly slid down the sage green silk wallpaper leaving behind dark smears. The smiling child walked back into her room to await her parent's return.

Time passed. She'd awaken hoping to find her parents and brothers only to find strangers and each time her wrath grew, until no one wanted to live in the large house anymore. Lack of maintenance and unchecked animal activity took its toll on the wooden structure. Vandals stole whatever wasn't nailed down and destroyed what was left. Wind, rain and snow wreaked havoc on the interior as much as the exterior. Wood rotted; weakening the house as hail punched holes through the roof, opening the attic to the elements.

The child searched everywhere for her favorite doll. "Sally Anne where are you?" She looked under her bed, inside her traveling trunk, under her parent's bed, her baby brother's crib and even though she wasn't allowed to touch it she checked inside the china cabinet papa built for mama. "Sally Anne I'm getting cross with you!" she stamped her bare foot to make the point. Sally Anne continued to ignore the child's demands.

"So the last body found had to be what again?" Startled, the child's head whips around towards the sound.

"Mopped up," replied a second voice, "they had to shovel what they could into a bucket and mop up the rest, the body had been literally pulverized. The coroner still hasn't made the determination if the body had been a male or female yet."

"Jeez."

"Yeah."

The child peers through the window glass at the two men in the front yard, the setting sun's rays lighting up her pale face though she couldn't feel the warmth. Her papa would have shorn her older brothers bald if they'd dared to wear their hair as long as the taller man. But to her it was the perfect length and would look really nice on Sally Anne - her blonde hair was getting a little ratty. The men moved away and the child sighed at the loss of all that pretty brown hair. She was again looking for the naughty Sally Anne when the sound of old boards creaking on the back porch got her attention. She scurried to the back door just as it flew open and the two men she'd seen earlier walked in and shut the door behind them. Anger flowed through her at the intrusion and the room grew frosty cold.

The taller man shivered, "well that's not good."

"Ya think?" replied the shorter man.

Getting her first real good look at the intruders her frown turned into an evil smile as she gazed at the taller one's hair. _-So pretty-_ She gasped as she took in the gorgeous green eyes of the shorter man. _-Sally Anne would love to have green eyes-_She laughed at the thought, the unearthly sound causing the men to raise their weapons and look around sharply. Cautiously the men split up and searched the other rooms of the house. She didn't like it when that thing in the shorter man's hand made an awful noise and lit up when he came near her, so she sent a cold wind whipping around the room to warn him off.

"Damnit," he muttered glancing warily around, "so what are we looking for exactly Sam?" he called out.

"I'm not sure Dean," was the echoing reply from her parent's room, "the bodies of the little girl, infant and their mother were burned back in the forties." The child grew still. "If they were causing the deaths then that should have set them free."

Tears glittered in her eyes as the men continued to search the trashed house. Unimaginable pain flooded through her. _-Mama and baby James were burned up?-_She didn't care about giving Sally Anne new hair and eyes anymore, black revenge filled her heart.

"Dean I swear it just dropped another ten degrees…," the rest of his sentence was cut off by the sound of wood cracking closely followed by a pained yelp.

"Sammy!" Dean yelled hurrying into the room. "Sam!"

"I'm fine Dean," the taller man _-Sam-_ stifled back a groan as he pulled his leg gingerly out of the hole, doing his best not to get stabbed by any rusty nails that might be lurking out of sight.

Squatting down next to Sam the shorter man _-Dean-_asked, "is it broken?"

"Don't think so," Sam replied pushing away Dean's questing fingers to check his own ankle. He moved his other leg out from its uncomfortable position under his butt, he'd landed on it when the floorboards gave way.

They both started at the sound of large objects impacting the walls. "We gotta get moving bro," Dean said standing up and offering a helping hand to Sam. He'd just started to reply when a god-awful stench floated up from the hole. Gagging, they both stepped back; Sam stepped back with his injured ankle, ending up back on the floor. "God, what is that?" Dean asked, holding his arm up to his nose trying to block the horrible smell.

With a disgusted look on his face, Sam reached into the hole and pulled out what could only loosely be described as a doll. Shriveled eyeballs fell out of the open eye sockets, decaying calfskin flaked off the arms and legs, a small, decomposing human hand was haphazardly sewn onto one limb and the blonde-haired wig started disintegrating in Sam's hand. Screaming, "MINE!" the child rushed at the doll thief. A hurricane force wind proceeded her, picking Sam up and tossed him out the window with the doll still in his hand. The sound he made hitting the hard packed earth outside was barely audible over the onslaught of noise made by everything in the room slamming against the walls, ceiling and floor.

Bleeding from various cuts and scrapes, Dean fought a losing battle to get out of the room. "SAM!" Every time he hit the floor and tried to scramble towards the door he ended up getting swept back into the maelstrom and bounced against a wall or ceiling, sometimes both at the same time, or against one of the many other objects in the air. "Aaagh! Sam!"

The child saw Dean hit the ground near the door and try to escape. "No, no, no," she sang, the eerie sound fought for dominance with the loud racket all ready in the room. A pointed length of wood sailed past the child and it gave her a wicked idea, she grabbed it and used it to pin Dean's leg to the floor. Hearing the man howl in pain was music to her ears. She looked around for other suitable pointy objects, _-he could be like one of the bugs in papa's collection-_ she thought. From the corner of her eye she could see Dean struggling to pull the wood from his leg. She laughed, the sound causing the man to struggle even harder. He's going to be an example to all the others who invade her parent's home. When they stopped coming maybe her parents and brothers would come back. The idea made her smile as she sorted through the objects still circling the room.

Dean gritted his teeth as he pulled at the wood imbedded through his calf muscle and into the floor. The pain was intense however so was his desperation. He didn't know what to expect next but experience had taught him that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be healthy for him. As he kept an eye out for more pointy objects coming his way, a small figure started coalescing a few feet away. Long blonde hair, turn of the century dress and a pale face containing the craziest eyes he'd seen in a long time.

The child's smile brightened further when she spied suitable pins for her new bug. Breaking out in a cold sweat, Dean struggled harder as the child spirit pulled lengths of lead pipe out of the swirling debris cloud. "Not good, so not good," he muttered as she floated towards him.

"No!" a voice said faintly, a cry of pain followed a thud at the window. "No!" the voice said stronger, "Jemima STOP!"

The wind stopped and all the flying objects hit the ground with a great crash. Jemima turned towards Sam, surprise showing on her face, "how do you know my name?" she asked.

He used the wall to lever himself up and walked farther into the room holding up the doll in his left hand; the unforeseen flight through the window followed by a hard landing had not improved the doll's appearance by a long shot. In fact it was now missing a leg, a good chunk of its hair and an obvious crack ran through its china face. "'Jemima loves Sally Anne' is embroidered on a heart shaped patch."

"You stole her! Give her back now!" Jemima demanded, the swirling wind started up again and her figure became more opaque.

"Jemima," he let out a pained sigh, pulling his right arm closer to his stomach with his left arm and shifting his weight slightly to relieve the pain in his ankle. "Jemima you need to stop killing people, you need to rest…be with your family."

"They keep my parents and brothers away. Until they learn to stay out of my papa and mama's house," she said with a dangerous calm before turning back to Dean, her visage grew horrible to look at as she held a piece of lead pipe aloft, "they are all bugs for my papa's collection." She glanced back at Sam, "we'll see how you two like it when your bodies are burned just like my mama's and baby brother James'."

Sam wavered on his feet, blood trickled down his forehead and cheek then dripped onto his collar. He edged his way past Jemima towards his still struggling brother. "What would your mom and brother think if they knew you were killing people in their names, huh kid?" Dean said nastily.

"Dean.."

"Sammy," he growled, reaching into his jacket pocket, "drop it. I'm not going to go all touchy-feely with the spirit of a nine year old who's trying to kill me." Jemima listened with curiosity to the exchange between the two men all the while planning the best way to puncture their bodies. What she didn't notice was as soon as Dean said "drop it", Sam had tossed the doll onto the floor near the pinned man. Within seconds Dean had his lighter out, lit and tossed onto the doll. As the doll burst into flames Sam pulled out the missing leg and hair from his pocket and tossed them onto the fire - followed by a couple of salt packets.

"SALLY ANNE!" Jemima screamed in anguish.

"Help me Sam," Dean called, pulling on the piece of wood again. Sam limped over and with his help they yanked the wood free from the floor and Dean's calf. His shouted swear words were drowned out by Jemima's shriek as she disintegrated. Helping each other up they limped and hobbled as fast as they could away from the spreading fire. They made it to the back door just as a giant whoosh of flame shot out of the room's doorway. Dean yanked the back door open, coughing they made their way out and stumbled as quickly as they could away from the house. The world lit up around them as the house became fully engulfed in flames.

The rush of air knocked the brothers down, both cried out as they hit the ground. "Sam?" He laid face up on the ground, his left hand clutching at the dirt as spasms of pain ran through his right shoulder and arm. "Sammy?" a dirt streaked face full of concern appeared above his own.

Gritting his teeth he replied, "the fall knocked my dislocated shoulder back into place." Nodding, Dean patted him on his good shoulder and sat up. Pulling a bandana from his jacket pocket he wrapped it around his bleeding leg. Tying it tightly, he groaned and fell back onto the ground. "Jemima's hair was used for the doll's wig," came floating out of the night.

"Evidently."

"Where'd the eyes and hand come from?"

Dean shuddered, "some poor sap probably."

"Yeah…probably." They listened quietly to the snap, crackle and pop of the fire. "How's the leg?"

"Hurts like hell."

"Hospital?"

Dean sighed, not liking the idea. What were the odds that he would be stabbed with the one piece of wood in the house that _hadn't_ been pooped and peed on by every mouse, skunk and coyote in the last one hundred twenty-four years? Winchester odds of course. "Yeah. Where's the nearest one?" he asked knowing his brother would have the information. When his brother didn't reply he said in a concerned tone, "Sam?"

"Uh, sorry. Guess I hit my head harder than I thought. Uhm…Fall River Hospital in Hot Springs. It's about..about twenty-five minutes away." Sam chuckled softly, "give or take." In the distance they heard the house fall in on itself.

Dean sat up, holding his head in his hands when the world spun. "You ready to move?"

"Not really. Can we lie here a bit longer?"

"Do you have any wienies or marshmallows to roast?" His brother laughed. "Then nope. Somebody might've seen the fire and reported it."

"Thought you might say that." It took a couple of tries but they finally made it to their feet. The brothers stumbled off to the safety of the Impala and the promise of pain medication in their near future.

_**-FIN-**_


End file.
